I never found God in church pews, though to be fair, nearly all of my church experiences as a kid and as an adult have been Catholic.
Instead, I’ve found God, spirit, connection, and myself in other places. Under big, leafy trees where sunlight filters through and the leaves serve as my protector. In the ocean, the lake, nearly any natural body of water.
And on stage.
Almost always on stage. Any stage. Anywhere there’s a microphone and an audience. (Likely why I started my career in public broadcasting, and possibly why I should have stayed there a bit longer. But regrets are nothing but lessons, really. Which is why people who say they have no regrets scare the piss out of me.)
There was a stretch when I told stories often, at least once a month, maybe more. At one point, I even launched a storytelling workshop with my friend Sara, and businesses like top pharmaceutical companies and large Boston nonprofits hired us to work with employees, executives, board members, and kidddos at camp at the Children’s Museum.
And then life happened.
Divorce.
COVID.
Career changes.
A rescued puppy.
More career changes.
Cancer.
I stayed off stage longer than I ever imagined.
Until recently, I wrote a new story. One meant to be told out loud, in front of people again.
It was about my emergency brain surgery and the meal I wanted my boyfriend, Chef Todd Winer, to cook for everyone. My family, the nurses, the doctors, the orderlies. He made it. And to this day, I don’t think of his bolo as medicine. I think of it as miraculous.
So I put out a call online to see if anyone knew a place where I could tell again. Friends responded. Within a week, I was booked by Fugitive Productions to perform at Old Frog Pond Farm in Harvard, Massachusetts.
I arrived hours early. I didn’t know what else to do with myself. So, I practiced the piece again and again.
I love it when I listen, really listen, to myself.
When I first came to the mic, I blanked for a few moments. Then I started, and the story came out. Maybe even more beautifully than I had practiced. And I didn’t break down crying, which I’ll also count as a win.
Afterward, audience members came up. Some asked for hugs. Some told me about their mothers with melanoma. Others told me about scans they were about to undergo. And then one woman stopped me at my car.
She told me I had done a good job, and that she felt something change in her as I spoke. When I asked if it was a good thing, she laughed. “The best kind of change.”
I should have asked first, but I just lunged out and hugged her. I told her I hadn’t told a new story in years, and that what she said made me believe I should keep doing it.
I wouldn’t call it medicine. But maybe, just maybe, it was miraculous.
On the perfectly imperfect ride home, my son texting angrily because I forgot to drop off his PlayStation, a sudden downpour, an emergency call to the vet for one of Todd’s dogs, I remembered:
Storytelling nights. That’s my church. And I love going.
Amen.
(PS - Prayers for the dog appreciated, all should be fine, but there’s nothing worse than sick kids or sick dogs.)
